(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and method for identifying an individual by utilizing biometric information on a human being, or more particularly, a finger vein pattern.
(2) Description of the Related Art
While an interest in a security technology for safely managing personal information and property has grown, biometrics authentication that uses biometric information on a human being has attracted attention. As an existing biometrics authentication technology, an authentication method that employs a fingerprint, the iris, voice, a face, a vein in the palm, or a finger vein is known. In particular, a vein authentication technology that utilizes absorption of infrared light, which is irradiated to a living body, by hemoglobin in blood has the advantage of a low psychological resistance owing to the capability to achieve authentication merely by irradiating light to a finger, and the advantage of excellent forgery-proof performance due to utilization of internal information on a living body.
Vein authentication is expected to be applied to various fields. In the field of management of people who join or leave a company or management of employees on whether they work hard or not, there is an increasing need for large-scale 1-to-N authentication involving plural sites. In a financial field, for example, usage in empty-handed settlement allowing a user to do shopping merely by placing a finger without the necessity of presenting any card is attracting attention. In this kind of usage, it is necessary to accurately discriminate several ten thousands to several millions of users from one another. High precision exceeding the level of precision guaranteed by existing finger vein authentication is requested.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-35560 has disclosed a method for, compared with a case where one finger is required, improving precision in authentication by increasing the number of fingers employed in authentication. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-39534 has disclosed that a three-dimensional structure of a blood vessel appearing in an image picked up by plural lenses is used for authentication.